Course Notes: Lofoten summits
Thanks for booking our snowshoe trip in the Lofoten Islands. This is a truly magical place and I know we are going to have an amazing trip!
Who is the trip suitable for?
You need to be happy operating in the winter environment on snowshoes or crampons. We will be walking mountains that are Scottish in size and scale but with shorter daylight hours so you need a good level of fitness and an understanding of how to manage yourself in this environment. On an average day we will cover 10-15km with 1000m of height gain in snow.
There will be no technical climbing and no glaciers. We have a wide range of mountains to explore and will tailor the week to suit the weather and the snow conditions.
What does the course cover?
We will spend 5 days in the mountains of Lofoten. Where the weather and conditions allow we will climb summits. Where we need to be careful with weather or conditions we will explore lower lying areas.
What is included in the course cost?
The course fee includes leadership and logistical organisation.
You will need to pay for your own flights, accommodation and insurance, I will book hire cars and accommodation and ask you to pay the costs. We will share a car and a house as a team. I have set out a budget below:
Course Cost: £900 per person
Hire Car: £200 each
Flights: £320 return – you book for yourself
Accommodation – £400 each
A quick note on why we set the costs out this way: We are not set up as Tour Operators and so cannot charge an all in price. If we were to do this we would need to take out Tour Operator Insurance to hold clients money for third party bookings – this would increase the cost of this trip.
Currency: The most cost effective method is to use a travel card with no transaction charges. I use a Post Office Travelcard which can be used contactless on my phone. There are few opportunities to use cash.
Flights
You need to arrange flights to Lofoten. You will find a range of options on Skyscanner with carriers like SAS flying via Oslo. I will email everyone on the trip so that we can coordinate arrival times for the hire car.
Insurance
You will need a policy that covers you for personal accident and cancellation. We use The BMC for our own cover.
Kit List:
Please make sure that you bring everything that is on this list:
Waterproof Jacket – full weight breathable model preferred.
Overtrousers – with 3/4 or full length side zips.
Rucsac 30-40l capacity – a number of different sized drybags are useful
Winter Boots
Socks
Gaiters
Wicking thermal top.
2 Warm fleeces or equivalent.
Mountain trousers.
2 pairs of gloves that are warm
Beanie or woolly hat
Spare Mittens especially if you suffer from cold hands.
Water Container approx 1l, or thermos flask.
Headtorch + batteries
Map, Compass + Whistle
Personal medications + blister kit
Ski Goggles + sun glasses
Trekking poles with snow baskets
Blizzard Survival Jacket (Emergency kit)
#Crampons
#Ice Axe
#Snowshoes (we like TSL or MSR)
#Avalanche transceiver, shovel and probe
# Items can be hired in the UK from the following links:
BMC Article on Risk & Safety in climbing & mountaineering.
The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is the representative body in the UK for hill walkers, climbers and mountaineers. It has produced a Participation Statement for anyone involved in walking, climbing or mountaineering to say that:
The BMC recognises that climbing and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions.
If you join one of our courses you acknowledge and accept these risks and so we thought a few facts and figures might be useful in explaining what you are accepting.
Injuries
Injuries are possible in climbing, hill walking and mountaineering, as in all sporting activities, as a result of over-training, inappropriate training regimes, or poor technique as well as those that might be sustained during a slip or fall, or if something or someone falls on a person.
Risk
Risks need to be put in context. There are currently about 5 million climbing wall user visits annually and it has bee estimated that between the 1960s and 2005 there were approximately 50 million climbing wall user visits in the UK alone. During that period there was only one fatality at a wall in England and Wales. There are 13 million young people in this country. Of the approximately 700 fatal accidents that occur every year, there is approximately one child death per year in organised adventurous activities in comparison with 457 land transportation accidents (National Statistics).
Risk is an integral part of the activity and can play a vital role in helping young people to acquire these extremely important life skills. Minimising the risk boils down to having the right level of skill and experience relative to the difficulty of the activity. Our courses will help you to understand and assess these risks for yourself. Accidents can happen due to circumstances over which the climber has no control, such as a rockfall, and in these events first aid training can make all the difference.
Accident rates
Because experienced climbers strive very hard to know their own limitations, the sport enjoys remarkably low accident rates. Incidents that make news headlines often involve individuals operating in environments for which they were ill-prepared, and this can give a somewhat skewed impression of the dangers involved in the sport. Many of the ‘climbers’ reported in the media as having been involved in accidents, died or got lost in mountainous areas are not dedicated climbers. Often they are tourists who have gone out walking or people who don’t have much experience in the mountains. Therefore some of the tragedies that hit the headlines may reflect poorly on dedicated mountaineers who are more likely to be better prepared and not as likely to require mountain rescue.
Even on a course there is a need for personal responsibility and self reliance in all mountaineering activities. We will have contingency plans in the event of an emergency and are first aid trained but you should also carry basic first aid equipment as detailed in your course notes. All of our courses aim to teach you to assess the risks for yourself, to make you an independent climber/mountaineer or hillwalker but there are some risks that we cannot completely remove.
If you feel uncomfortable at any time you should say so and don’t be afraid to ask why we are doing what we are doing. There is no pressure whatsoever for you to take part in any activity that you do not want to take part in.
The BMC has produced an introductory booklet for parents of young people who participate in climbing-related activities.